Of course, schools serving deprived areas face great challenges, but no kid goes to school to fail. I’ve yet to meet a student who doesn’t want to do well in life.

Newham, the East London borough where I grew up and now run a sixth form academy, might be a poverty-stricken area, but there’s no poverty of ambition. We encourage our students to aim high: we want them to compete with Eton and Harrow, and I don’t see why we can’t match their achievements. This summer, after only our second year’s A-level results, 190 of our 200 students were offered places at Russell Group universities, including nine offers from Oxbridge and one from MIT in the US.

At my school, at the start of the year we take every student to visit Cambridge – regardless of their current grade predictions. You should never underestimate

My parents were migrants, with no formal education, and I attended the local comprehensive. While every child’s circumstances are different, I imagine it helps our pupils to know I was in a very similar situation to them when I attended school. When I went to university and then to work in a City law firm, I often reflected on why many of my school peers didn’t achieve like I did, and access some of the high profile professions that help disadvantaged students and their families out of poverty. One important reason is that there are often low expectations of young people from deprived areas. If we set the bar low, it means pupils – and teachers, and parents – don’t bother to try; and no one is surprised when the result, at the end of it all, is mediocrity.

Conversely, if we pitch to the top, and develop strong, nurturing relationships with our students, we instill a sense of ambition, and once it catches on across the school it’s very hard for students to swim against the tide. At my school, at the start of the year we take every student to visit Cambridge – regardless of their current grade predictions. You should never underestimate. We encourage them to think about being prime minister, supreme court judges, lawyers and doctors; we send them on work placements to international law firms here and overseas, and host guest speakers as august as former Governors of the Bank of England.

Headteachers must not be afraid to change the status quo. I am often bemused by initiatives that continue to be used in schools without any real analysis of what impact they are having on student progress. In a business environment, profit is always at the forefront; headteachers and education policymakers should, in the same way, be concentrated on getting a return for their investment – their investment being teachers’ time.

We have a 98 per cent attendance rate. If students call in sick, I sometimes turn up on their doorstep to drive them into school

Our strategies for discipline include a strict uniform policy – rare among sixth form colleges – and no free periods, with everyone in private, supervised study instead. We set a minimum of three hours homework in the evenings and five hours a day on the weekends. If pupils aren’t putting in the effort they are hauled in and our expectations are made clear to them and their parents. Exclusions should be used as a last resort, but if behaviour is disrupting the rest of the class I believe they should be at a headteacher’s disposal, with the child then being supported to reintegrate into school.

But once you develop relationships with young people, and they know you care about them, you’re less likely to need to resort to such measures.

We have a 98 per cent attendance rate, which may have something to do with the fact that if students call in sick, I sometimes turn up on their doorstep to drive them into school. Like I said, no excuses.

Some blame poor standards on lack of investment, and it’s right to draw attention to the fact there’s a teacher recruitment crisis and a real term cut in funding. We need more of an incentive to drive high quality graduates to consider teaching, and to drive teachers to become headteachers. Heads that are parachuted in should be encouraged to stay for the long term, without the fear of being sacked within a year if the school isn’t doing well enough. The things I am advocating – leadership, vision, values and culture – are about more than money. It’s no good blaming a lack of resources, or deprivation amongst your kids, if you haven’t got those things right.